Wind farm to support Tarec earnings

TRANS-ASIA Renewable Energy Corporation (TAREC) is confident it will achieve stronger financial results this year primarily due to generation revenues from its 54-megawatt (MW) San Lorenzo wind farm in Guimaras, Iloilo.

The Guimaras wind mill received its Certificate of Compliance (CoC) last December 11 from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), which entitles TAREC to charge a feed-in tariff (FIT) rate of P7.40 per kilowatt-hour for the power generated by the facility.

The COC allows TAREC to charge the FIT rate retroactively from December 27, 2014 – when the P590-million wind farm started operations — for a guaranteed period of 20 years or until December 26, 2034.

The FIT is a subsidy granted to renewable energy projects constructed and permitted within a certain deadline.

TAREC is a fully owned subsidiary of Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Corporation (TA), the energy arm of the PHINMA Group.

Francisco L. Viray, president and CEO of Trans-Asia, welcomed the grant of the CoC and said it was a positive development for TA as parent company of TAREC.

“We can fully recognize generation revenues from our 54-MW wind farm in Guimaras with retroactive effect on our financial results for the year,” he said.

Trans-Asia Oil reported consolidated net income of P397 million for the nine months ended September 2015. This was more than five times the P59 million net income posted during the same period of the previous year.

According to TA, the strong growth in net income was driven mainly by increaseed generation revenue which amounted to P1.02 billion for the nine-month period, a 41 percent increase in revenue from P723 million in the previous period.

Contributing to the significant increase in revenue was the successful operations of TAREC.

According to Danilo L. Panes, TAREC vice president, they are pleased with the outcome of their wind farm, which supplements the energy requirements of Panay island.

“This reduces the island’s reliance on power from Negros, improving the reliability of the Visayas grid,” said Panes.

TAREC is the first and only project that has been issued a Final Certificate of Approval to Connect to the Grid by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), signifying Trans-Asia’s full compliance with the requirements for renewable energy projects under the Grid Code.

The wind farm will comparably reduce carbon emissions by around 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) for the duration of its 20-year minimum project life.

“We are committed to promoting clean and sustainable energy, and can move ahead with additional projects to expand our renewable energy portfolio as our contribution to addressing climate change,” said Viray.